BBCSH 'What It Isn't'
by tigersilver
Summary: Sherlock catalogues all the many items it is not, in the category of John Watson.


BBCSH 'What It _Isn't_'

Author: tigersilver

Rating: NC-17

Warnings/Summary: Sherlock makes up mental lists, in bed. Outright fluff content: very high. Mind the oncoming diabetic shock, dearies.

The hair is delightful but it's not the hair. The razored-edges of each wheaten sheaf, each strand, are pleasing to his searching fingertips and twisting knuckles as they slide through, gripping, but it's not the hair. It's not John's hips, either, though there's this fascinating shallow indent on the outer curve of each, where the slope curves to the gluteus maximus, just like there is on Sherlock's own, and he's more than pleased to confirm John's just as trim as could be under those bulky jerseys and he'd known this and _known this_ and has wanted it, so much so he could taste it.

Thought to deed and he's doing that instead, squeezing hard enough to bruise, just as John likes, one hand still buried in John's hair. John obligingly moans encouragement at him.

He's touched John's body in some way not merely casual approximately thirty-seven times so far, with increasing frequency, just over the last seven days elapsed, and it's not the sensation of touch, either. It's not even the half-shadowed look in John's eyes. He's fairly accurate at assessing the looks people give him and this is one he's been inordinately pleased with since the very beginning: fascination, amazement—kindness and fondness and pleasure.

It might be the series of small noises John makes: whimpers, gasps, breathless whispers that form only parts of familiar words, like 'Sher!' and '—god!—' and 'fu—' and 'mo-mo-more!' He's enormously chuffed to have them fall into his audial canals; tiny stutters, they're like gifts at Christmas, all deduced as likely to occur in this situation but still wanted even so, very much. Sherlock's smiling his _most-best-better than_ smile down at John in his bed and he simply can't help himself or even think to stop looking like a loon. John does this to him.

John's groans and helpless twitches tell him he's doing well in demonstrating his all-consuming appreciation of all things John; better than well, actually, and that John wants him to continue.

"Please—please, Sherlock!"

No, is _begging _him to. Literally.

It's not John's dick, which is slightly more than in proportion but not outrageous for his size, either. It's thick and swollen beneath Sherlock's fingers and it's very hot. John's compact and well-muscled; he's fitter than most men his age—their age, actually. Sherlock's not that far behind him chronologically.

He spares a grimace for the times gone by that have been pointlessly wasted and then carefully stuffs any and all regret back into its strongbox in the rear reaches of his formidable brain. It is _now_, at last, finally, and _now_ is perhaps equable to the when that was _meant to be_, though Sherlock believes no more in fate or angels than he ever did. He does believe in John, however, and it may be that before this _now_, John wouldn't have come quite so willingly to Sherlock's arms. Howsoever he's arrived here, though, makes no nevermind. He's here now—and it's not only John's mouth, either.

John's mouth provokes mental rhapsodies. He's skilled in the use of it, a champion snogger, and Sherlock's determined to match him up for every swipe, every suck, every nip and lick and tongue-thrust. Makes for saliva everywhere, messy all across their chins, and Sherlock leaves a gleaming snail-trail down John's neck quite deliberately.

He exults when he bites down and applied suction specifically, as it induces John's dimpled hips to shove up off the mattress. He's crouched over John and fumbling for a sheath and more lube and John's reaching to help and for a moment it's a little silly, in the way that two naked people readying themselves for a bout of torrid sex in the dark deep of night _is_ silly.

It's _not_ the sex. No.

Not the cuppa at two a.m., presented without flourish. Not the gun. Not the _ad hoc_ doctoring, nor the infectious shared giggles, inappropriately spilling forth. Not even John's snide _sotto voce_ running commentary in regards dull things like countertops, scarred, and milk, not available; again fond if oft irritated, but always in syncopation to Sherlock's best mental moments—the baseline beat to his more esoteric mental melody. God no, it's none of that.

It's, well. It's a mushy, nebulous concept, this, pillowy and billowy, and should really send him into fits to even conceptualize it, let even allow the marshmallow inexactitudes to sully the clear-cut, sharply defined, nearly always excruciatingly spot-on processes of factual compilation and logically-following reasoning Sherlock's always been so bloody proud of. What he should be is mortified with himself, but he's not.

It's so simple. Ghastly obvious.

There's a precisely John-sized hole by his side when he walks or cabs without the man actually physically present. When he very occasionally sleeps or eats or touches himself in the bath and his companion is not right there, facing him or behind. There's an echoing gap in the flat or the morgue or the alleyway he's steadfastly transversing when he speaks to a point—a precious clue—and John doesn't reply, as he's not actually there, beside Sherlock. There's an empty hand on the end of his arm when he holds it out, expecting, and nothing he needs appears, no matter how long or patiently he waits.

When he texts—to inform, to annoy, to coax or flirt—and it doesn't ping in return. Almost instantly or even within the hour, a reasonable lag when John's busy at the surgery.

When he sprints and leaps rubbish bins and rooftops balletically, and there's no grumbling, smiling good doctor dogging his heels.

When he's facing down Donovan's acid tongue and Anderson's brontosaurian folly and Lestrade's foolishly playing at nannying them all to protect his crime scene and Sherlock's knight-errant in a worn leather-patched jacket doesn't glare them down, surgically, instantly. Ferociously. _Effectively_.

It's that, all that.

_Horrid._ Sherlock shudders. _Can't even contemplate_.

"Sherlock? Sherlock!" John demands now, right now, because Sherlock is lost for the moment, wandering the wastes that are his seconds spent without John when John is occupied elsewhere or elsewhen, and he's impatient with Sherlock; it's wroth in his tone. "Sherlock, you're shagging me, remember? In the midst, damn it! Can't you keep your eye on the ball?"

"Oh, yes," Sherlock deadpans. Teasing, because John likes it when he teases, really he does. "Pardon. Thought of something, that's all."

"Whaaaat?" and John's strapped a whinge on already, understandably enough since Sherlock's cock is only rammed half up his arse and has stilled to Neolithic slowness, never quite reaching its intended goal, John's prostate. "You utter tit, Sherlock. Now's not the time to—"

"Yes, I know," Sherlock grins in the dark of pre-pre-dawn and goes about pacifying his John, in one of the best ways he's learnt how. "I'm on it—I'm with you. Sorry!"

The half-light from a streetlamp glints off his bared teeth, reflect eerily his pale eyes. John's lashes flutter up at him, catching the fuzzy sodium-yellow and somehow performing an alchemy of their own—gone all gold on the ends.

It's not John's eyelashes, either. No, not those.

"I should hope so; _really_, Sherlock," John growls, shifting restlessly under him, and Sherlock's already giving way again to the overwhelming call of transport. "Ridiculous, what you think of at times like these."

"Yes, John."

"Suppose it was the brand of rubber—ack!" John huffs theatrically as Sherlock's prick follows through in a pummeling rush. "Not as satisfactory, I shouldn't wonder, these—too thick. Or—or—it _wasn't_ that poor bloke down St Bar—ar—arrh-_ah_-**ahaha**!"

Sherlock bends back into John with a will. "No, John."

"If—if!" John's rolling his expressive eyes at the preposterousness of the notion already, even as Sherlock manhandles his flailing limbs closer by dint of grasping at those delicious hip indents and shoves John's equally lovely knees over his bent shoulders to achieve a much more accurate angle. "_If_ it's that bloody, sod—"

Sherlock bites one of John's earlobes, just so.

"It isn't, John. I swear."

"G-G-Good-oh! _Oh_!"

Sherlock's got them both settled to his satisfaction. There's a science to this and science_ is_ passion, really, and John _is_ his passion, and all's well in his bed-cheers. Ta, bugger off, mundane world. He's busy fucking John, thanks. _Go away_.

"Right. Carry on, John. _I've_ got you."

"—ngh-god! Yes, yes!—"

"Give it to me, John." He does, too. John is in his arms, John's arse is his cock's nirvana and refuge, all wrapped into one. John's eyes—wild now and rolling back in his head—are the wells his purported soul dives into, deep and endlessly inviting. That's it, right there, in a nutshell. _I've got you_. "All you have, I want it,_ John_."

"Sherlock…ck!" It's a die-away moan, ending in an unmanly squeak, and perhaps the dearest sound Sherlock's ever heard in his whole life. "Sh-**Sher**—!"

He ejaculates to the lulling murmurs, the involuntary jerks and tremors, the shout-out of a John Watson likewise coming, and counts himself purely fortunate there are such things as Johns in the world.

"It's alright, it's alright," John mumbles into Sherlock's heaving chest, his lips sliding smooth on the sheen of sweat. "I've got you, _I've_ got you; come _on_. Sherlock, love, that's _it_…oh, _beautiful_."

Johns are meant for people like Sherlocks, who can easily advise a passing chap or nosy DI as to what it _isn't_, this cloudy, hazy, never-to-be truly defined swell of happiness, and not nearly so easily articulate as to what it_ is_.

Fin.


End file.
